Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Jesse Jackson's Black Talk

Special rights advocate Jesse Jackson was humiliated last month when Fox News cameras he thought were off recorded him threatening to emasculate Barack Obama and saying that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee patronizes "niggers."

He quickly apologized for his crude and crass remarks. Lost amid the nationwide furor over his remarks was the context. Jackson made his comments to another black guest and probably took it for granted they would remain private.

Sound familiar? During his 1984 campaign for president Jackson would have what he called "black talk," off-the-record discussion with black reporters. It was during this "black talk" that Jackson called New York "Hymietown."

Washington Post reporter Milton Coleman told another Post scribe about the comments. The paper then mentioned it in passing towards the bottom of a long article about Jackson.

Jackson was forced to apologize and he's been tainted with anti-Semitism ever since. For breaking ranks with Jackson. Coleman was threatened with his life by Louis Farrakhan.

Back to the present. Once again Jackson's been burned by his own "black talk."

What does it say about Jackson that he talks one way with whites and another with blacks?

Certainly, it should make his calls for common ground suspect. If Jackson says one thing to blacks and another to whites why should anyone take him seriously when he tries to find common ground between the races?

Most of all, it shows Jackson is the moral equivalent of a segregationist. He sees America as two separate parts: a black world and a white world. And they are so at odds that he can't even speak the same way to blacks that he does whites. They are separate and unequal. Blacks are allowed to use certain words that whites are not.

No wonder he supports affirmative action which treats blacks with one standard and whites to another. In this scenario, the country is dived between the privileged and underprivileged.

That's white and black.

Martin Luther Kings dream that blacks would be judged by the content of their character not color of their skin is not even an aspiration for Jackson.